Pinch bottom bags comprise bags manufactured by a bag manufacturer wherein one end of the bag is initially sealed at the manufacturing plant while the other end of the bag is maintained open. Pinch bottom bags are commonly used as bags within which a particular product is to be filled by end-use customers to whom the bag manufacturer sells their pinch bottom bags. The open end of the bag has an adhesive-coated flap disposed thereon which is adapted to be heat-sealed to the body portion of the bag once the bag has been filled with product by the end-user customer. The pinch bottom bags are thus sold to customers who fill the bags with a specified product wherein the product is charged or filled into the bag, and upon completion of the filling of the bag with the desired amount of product, the flap of the pinch bottom bag, which was originally disposed at the open end of the pinch bottom bag, is then closed and sealed. Examples of uses for such pinch bottom product bags are those for containing dog food, granular chemicals, grass seed, bird seed, and the like. The flaps disposed at the open end of the pinch bottom bags are coated with an adhesive in a sufficient amount so as to permit the aforenoted closing and sealing of the product bag once the product bag has been completely filled. The open end flap is folded over onto the body portion of the bag, and a sufficient amount of heat is applied to the adhesive-coated flap so as to in fact bond the flap to the body portion of the bag. After the pinch bottom bags are manufactured by the bag manufacturer, the bags are loaded or stacked on pallets, compressed together in a face-to-back mode, strapped or otherwise secured together, and shipped to the bag manufacturer's end-use customers who will then fill the bag with their particular products. It has been noted, however, that even though the adhesive disposed upon the adhesive-coated flaps is effectively cool, or is at least at room temperature, the compression of the stack of bags, and the strapping or other-wise securing together of the bags, or the weight of multiple pallets stacked one on top of another, often causes the adhesive-coated flaps to stick together. In addition, the bags may encounter heated conditions during shipping or storage. In any case, this sticking together of the adhesive-coated flap members of the product bags is known in the industry as adhesive blocking and is a substantial problem for both the bag manufacturer and the end-use customer for several reasons. Firstly, due to such adhesive blocking, multiple bags become stuck together. The customer must then manually separate the bags which is both tedious and time-consuming. Customers may even file claims against the bag manufacturer for lost production time incurred as a result of necessarily separating the bags before the bags can be inserted into or mounted upon their automated product filling machinery or apparatus.
Secondly, sometimes, for example, two bags may remain stuck together despite the best efforts of the customer personnel to separate the bags. In addition, it is often the case that whether automated machinery or semi-automated machinery is being used, the stuck-together bags will go unnoticed by operator personnel due to the fact that they have multiple operating procedures to perform while the bags are being conveyed toward, inserted into, or mounted upon the bag filling machinery or apparatus. The real problem then is that such bag filling machines are not generally equipped to handle stuck-together bags. Accordingly, when the product bags are inserted within or otherwise mounted upon the customer's product filling machinery or apparatus, the machinery will not be able to properly open the bags in preparation for the product filling or charging operations. Therefore, product to be inserted, filled, or charged into the product bags is not in fact properly filled or charged into the bags, spillage of the product will occur, and therefore the machinery will need to be shut down in order to deal with such spillage occurrences. Such machinery shutdowns obviously cause lost production time and/or lost product, all of which may result in additional claims being made by the end-use customer against the bag manufacturer.
Thirdly, the end-use customer may simply choose to return all stuck-together bags to the bag manufacturer which of course results in additional charges and a waste of money for both the bag manufacturer and the end-use customer. The bag manufacturer obviously has to accept the returned bags in view of the fact that they are effectively defective products that cannot be used by the end-user customer filling machinery. The bag manufacturer then has several options, none of which are desirable from an efficient and profitable production point of view—(1) manufacturer personnel will have to sort every bag by hand in order to find the defective adhesively blocked bags; or (2) the manufacturer will have to effectively rework the bags; or (3) the manufacturer will have to re-manufacture the bags as new bags. Regardless of the option chosen, such bags effectively serve as lost production units. In addition, the end-use customer cannot use the adhesively-blocked bags which will retard the product-filling production lines, and in addition, must invest valuable manpower into packaging the stuck-together bags in preparation for return to the bag manufacturer. Still further, the bag manufacturer will probably have to absorb the transportation costs incurred for the bags being returned to the manufacturer by the end-user customer. Furthermore, the bag manufacturer may have additional sales or technical service expenses associated with attempts to resolve the problem prior to receiving the returned bags.
A need therefore exists in the art for a new and improved substrate, and a method for fabricating the same, wherein such adhesive blocking is effectively prevented such that the operational problems and difficulties associated with such adhesive blocking do not occur.